The initial offer from the Pacers to Lance Stephenson in free agency was for five years and $44 million guaranteed, which may not seem too bad on the surface.

But for a variety of reasons, it wasn’t even under consideration by Stephenson’s camp, and he rejected it immediately before looking elsewhere.

Indiana continued to sign other players while waiting on Stephenson, but those moves only made it less likely he’d be back, considering that precious salary cap dollars were being taken away by those deals, and so any new offer that the Pacers came up with would have had to have been for less than the initial one, barring a gutting of some of the team’s additional players.

Even setting all of that aside, the original offer was the primary issue.

The agreement with the Hornets comes after the Pacers had offered “a couple of options” to Stephenson, according to his agent Alberto Ebanks. One option involved more up front money but less overall and the higher of the offers was a five-year deal – an albatross in the view of Stephenson’s camp – worth $44 million.

“It wasn’t really about the money,” Ebanks said. “(But) If it’s going to be too little then don’t let it be too long because you’re losing on both ends. …

“We’re betting on Lance and not against Lance. So if he had to take a little bit less, he was willing to do that. But you don’t want to take a little bit less and play your entire basketball prime, the next five years for a lower amount of money. If you’re going to take less, take less for a less amount of time then hit reset. … and enter the free agent market.”

For that last reason, the five-year deal was completely one-sided in favor of the Pacers.

Stephenson has certainly had his issues, most recently being a distraction more than he was an asset against LeBron James and the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals, and doing so on more than one occasion. But overall, he made a leap from a production standpoint last year, and was instrumental in helping Indiana get off to a strong start, especially during the first half of the season.

A five-year contract that paid him less than $9 million per year in total (remember, guys like Avery Bradley are getting $8 million per year in this market) was a semi-slap in the face. It was apparently treated as one by Stephenson’s team, who didn’t even give the Pacers a chance to match the offer that was ultimately accepted in Charlotte.

Horse shiet. I’m sure Indy would have given him a shorter contract in the beginning if he asked for it. He thought he was worth more and he wasn’t so he had to go with the best offer left on the table after Indy started spending. Nice try at spin though I guess.

Back up players such as C.J Miles, Rudez, and I think they signed another scrub too..But this Rudez guy actually looks pretty damn good as a stretch 4

johnc44 - Jul 16, 2014 at 2:02 PM

He didn`t give them a chance to match because he already talked to them about a shorter deal and their offer was less than Charlotte`s.He thought he was going to get paid like Parsons & Hayward and he lost.He signed the deal because it`s the best he could get but a unhappy Stephenson could be a disaster for Charlotte.They better hope they get off to a good start because if things go bad early he`ll ruin that team.

This is a pretty fair deal. After all, Luol Deng only got $10 million a year. Ariza got $8 mill per. A 5 year contract at those numbers though was definitely team friendly. Stephenson is only 23 and could easily outperform a 5 year deal.

This is a really nice deal for the Hornets. They are shaping up to have another nice season.

I’m no expert, just watched a lot of Bobcats basketball. Obvious to see McRoberts was a connector, but gotta love this move. Lance score 5pts more, nearly 3 Rebs more and had slightly more assists. The guy led the league in triple doubles. Moderate risk, high reward. And, big al is really the leader in the hornets locker room that very likely wouldn’t tolerate too many shenanigans. The pacers never had that guy to keep him in line, if he needs to be kept in line. You hope if lance has somewhat of a brain, he’d have learned his lesson and work real hard over the next 3 years.

He`ll work hard and he`ll have some triple doubles but Al Jefferson isn`t going to be able to control him anymore than David West was because he can`t control himself.After he blew in Lebron`s ear in game 6 everybody talked to him.He said himself that Bird told him to knock it off so he`d never do that again so in game 7 he slaps Lebron in the face because although i think he means well he is dumber than a box of rocks and has little self control.(pushing pregnant girlfriend down stairs for example) he has the talent to be high reward but if you`ve ever talked to him the risk is more than moderate.

We Bobcats/Hornets fans have to stick together but I don’t think anybody should be allowed to cite Lance Stephenson’s triple doubles as a positive stat. The dude became obsessed with stats for a stretch last year and completely sabotaged his team. It wasn’t a positive thing when he got a triple double.

I hope Lance has the worst possible career the rest of the way through. He will never win a championship. He’s a moron. I got the chance to briefly speak to him in person months ago, and immediately I could tell that this dude has the IQ of an 8 year old boy

Charlotte is London, Paris, and Tokyo all rolled into one compared to Indy.

johnc44 - Jul 16, 2014 at 5:19 PM

@therealhtj If you think PG was more of the problem than Lance your a complete idiot and if you knew anything about Lance at all you would know the bigger the city he`s in the more trouble he`ll find.He lives in the downtown bars.
He`s happy to go wherever he gets the most money because he proved last season after the all star break he cared more about stats & money than winning and he`s already talking about being an all star in 3 years and getting that big contract again so if Charlotte wants a great talent they got it but if they want to win they just messed up because Lance is a baller but he`s not a winner.

lol are you serious about your IQ not changing as you get older?? You need to read up on IQ tests.

And here’s a bonus: any IQ test that gives you a static number, isn’t the best IQ test. The top IQ tests gives the person a range (i.e. IQ between 134-139).

ProBasketballPundit - Jul 16, 2014 at 10:58 PM

Psych major and IQ test enthusiast here. IQ is not supposed to change as you age; that’s why they have specialized tests like the WISC for children. But there are some problems in measuring child IQs like how children develop very rapidly and sometimes at different rates than each other. It’s a lot easier to compare 32 year olds than it is 7 year olds. But generally IQ remains the same no matter how hard you study or how many drugs you do… it’s just an attempt to measure the base intelligence of an individual. And intelligence is sort of generally defined as how quickly and accurately you learn new things. Personally, my child IQ scores were slightly higher than my adult scores.

Funny, you bring up Bradley as being overpaid, but when you look at his #’s compared to Stephenson, they’re very close. Stephenson is a better rebounder & he’s bigger. Bradley is a better defender and he is MUCH faster than DS. DS is a lunatic who isn’t able to be trusted in big games, and AB has been one of the most coachable Celtics since the day he entered the league. They’ve also missed about the same amount of games. Just pointing out the facts…

I think the insuation that Bradley is “as good” as Lance isn’t accurate. Distributing the ball from the two makes Stephenson very valuable to other teams, (as long as his head is on straight) He averaged 4.7 APG last year, where as Bradley operates as a more traditional two (averaging 1.7 in less min).

Lance is indeed a better rebounder, and overall he’s a better shooter. Stephenson carried a better FG% last year (.491 to .438 for Bradley), and although Bradley is a better 3 point shooter, Lance is much better from close range, whereas Bradley is very inefficent (he attempted nearly 12 per game last year, indications of a volumer shooter).

As defenders, that seems to be about even, although Bradley is more adept at creating some steals. Still, I would argue Lance is a better player at this point.

Y such a hatrid for Indy? It’s actually an awesome city, and I see you all over this comment section spreading your hate for Indy. No one cares if you dislike Indy. Lance said many times he would love to return to this “corn field” state as you so kindly put it.

Oh an btw – responding to your ignorant comment earlier bc u clearly believe every rumor u hear – there was also rumors of Lance banging Hibby’s girl and also another rumor that Hibby was aware and cool with PG banging his girl and another rumor that Roy and Hibby had a three-some with Roy’s girl. Can’t believe everything you hear. If it’s not fact, don’t spread it

loubearkane - Jul 16, 2014 at 12:31 PM

What does Indy do now?
Wait for the Hornets to release Gerald Henderson?

Nice spin. In the vein of “you never know what can happen” I would think it more prudent for an agent to take a larger guaranteed contract as opposed to gambling on a future contract that may or may not be viable.

For all of you who think Lance is so great why could he only get 2 years 18 million guaranteed?Marvin Williams got 14 for 2.Channing Frye got 32 mill guaranteed.
Lance is a head case and a locker room cancer.He spends more time in the downtown bars than at Bankers Life Arena.Every GM in the league refused to give him big money.
He is more than just immature.He is borderline crazy and while it will hurt this season long term the team is better off without him.

I’m not the biggest Lance fan in the world but didn’t he lead the NBA in triple-doubles last year? He got less money because he’s a head case, sure, but he’s a good all-around player. Big loss for the Pacers without a clear replacement for his production/shot-creation/rebounding/defense

So you should pay him 10m a year because he had 5 triple doubles?They went from 33-7 to 22-20 without any injuries.The only difference was Lance stated thinking about getting paid instead of winning.If you didn`t play sports i can`t explain how important chemistry is to a team but if you`ve ever played on a team with a selfish,immature person who only cares about stats and constantly gripes and complains and points fingers at everyone except themselves then you understand sometimes there is addition by subtraction.

ProBasketballPundit - Jul 16, 2014 at 11:07 PM

No! The praise for Lance’s triple doubles stops here. He earned those triple doubles and many of his impressive stats at the expense of his team. Lance felt slighted because he didn’t make the all star team and after that he totally derailed his team chasing stats to prove everybody wrong about him. Now I hope he turns it around for the Hornets sake but let’s not get too excited about him leading the league in anything other than Team Chemistries Ruined-1.

loubearkane - Jul 16, 2014 at 1:26 PM

Frye got that money because Orlando needed to hit the Salary Cap Floor

He has talent but I wouldn’t have given him a big deal either. Charlotte worked out a great deal for both player and team and if he grows up in the next 3 years he will get the deal he thought he deserved this summer.